Underground  

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The mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground. - Frank Zappa
"Ideas enter our above-ground culture through the underground. I suppose that is the kind of function that the underground plays, such as it is. That it is where the dreams of our culture can ferment and strange notions can play themselves out unrestricted. And sooner or later those ideas will percolate through into the broad mass awareness of the broad mass of the populace. Occulture, you know, that seems to be perhaps the last revolutionary bastion." -- Alan Moore


Contents

In the dictionary

  1. Below the ground; below the surface of the Earth.
    There is an underground tunnel that takes you across the river.
  2. Hidden, furtive, secretive.
    These criminals operate through an underground network.
  3. Of music, art, etc, outside the mainstream.

Death of the underground

"The web has extinguished the idea of a true underground. It’s too easy for anybody to find out anything now, especially as scene custodians tend to be curatorial, archivist types. And with all the mp3 and whole album blogs, it’s totally easy to hear anything you want to hear, in this risk-less, desultory way that has no cost, either financially or emotionally." Simon Reynolds via woebot.

Related

alternative - banned - censorship - clandestine - controversial - counterculture - crime - cult - drugs - economy - forbidden - grotto - hidden - illegal - illicit - independent - a glossary of the non-mainstream - overground - prohibition - resistance - secret - subculture - subversive - taboo - transgressive - underworld

Contrast

mainstream - popular

Namesakes

Bibliography

Introduction

It is not easy to define the underground. Zappa's quote "The mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground." gives us an idea. The definition of underground culture I use, is, culture that has not reached the mainstream but that has gained popularity amongst a small and loyal audience [a subculture]. Actually, that is the same definition I give to cult as in cult movies.

One should should always remember that underground has a connotation of the illegal, the clandestine, the illicit; and a link with the adverse guerilla activities of the oppressed, most evidently displayed in the resistance movements of Europe during WWII.

To conclude::

Underground as an adjective commonly refers to something that is either below the ground or outside of public consciousness. As a proper noun, the underground refers to subcultures.

By medium

By region

See also




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Underground" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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